Hive Fleet Erebus
The 'Hive Fleet Erebus '''is a small and highly evolution-prone Tyranid Hive fleet. They have been recognised as utilising heavy numbers of light infantry, overwhelming their opponents in storms of venom and borer beetle fire before shifting to exclusive usage of scything talons and rending claws. The fleet also has a similar approach in airspace, with a usage of heavy airborne support, often thick enough to block out the sun. Making galactic contact amongst the first waves of Tyranids encountered in the 41st millennium, they are believed to be an evolved amalgamation of splinter fleets descended from the bulk of what would be named Hive Fleet Behemoth, with signs pointing to some similar behaviour patterns, colouration (with red pigment reduced to black) and direction of origin. Generally having survived through picking off weaker sources of biomass due to its size, the fleet has throughout its history of conflict suffered countless losses in almost equal number to the worlds it has devoured. By the late 8th century of M41, the fleet has since been officially documented as completely destroyed through a circumstantial and entirely opportunistic joint effort between the Blazing Claws and Iron Scorpions Chapters in addition to a single-company strike force believed to be of the Blood Vultures Chapter. In a sudden and ardent strike, the back of the fleet was broken, followed by a prioritised purge of all sources of synapse. Encounters Recorded encounters, all other worlds the fleet has encountered have most likely been destroyed before help signals could be sent. 745.M41 Kashidaan Cluster See "The Fall": The actions of Battlefleet Medici cost the Hive Fleet considerably but in time they rebuilt, leaving the Kashidaan worlds behind and continued onward. 750.M41 Blazing Claws A momentous climax to the Chapter's history, and the dawn for it's re-founding. Perhaps a first fleet of settlers sailing decades afore the main fleet of an alien threat utterly incomprehensible in its sheer strength and size, Erebus enclosed the planet hungrily, starving after their long journey through the void. They wiped the planet clean save several hundred marines in a matter of weeks, however it baffles Inquisitors and scholars alike as to how the remaining 172 fended off the rest of the fleet before it retreated. Since this day, legend proclaims that the fleet waits for a chance to strike back at them, and to once again pick the planet clean of biomass. 751.M41 Gai'kal Sept Phyrric tau victory over Erebus splinter fleet in the aftermath of the improperly coordinated and planned Operation Vral'y'he. Fleet managed in effectively wiping Gai'kal of half of all known biomass and the death of over 1.5 million Tau fleet soldiers and engineers, as well as a vast amount of Air Caste orbital starships before the splinter fleet retreated. Remaining tyranids on the planet's surface lost synapse contact in the resulting redirection of its mother fleet, allowing a considerably manageable holdout by surviving Tau forces and a final cleansing by reinforcing Tau forces several months later. 752.M41 Hwo'kye Sept Retreating from its failure at Gai'kal, the hive mind of the heavily damaged Erebus splinter fleet demanded the regathering of biomass to regain its losses. Rejoining with a larger splinter of the hive fleet headed further toward the galactic northwest, a sept lushly populated by insufficiently defended lifeforms stood within its path, the Hwo'kye Sept, orbiting a star only four light years away from Gai'kal. With a compromised Fire and Air Caste force having greatly been spent in reinforcing Operation Vral'y'he, the Sept was but futile in defending itself from the might of Erebus. Within less than half a single Tau'cyr, the sept was but wiped clean of all life, with only small reinforcing detachments of earth caste, a considerable fleet of water caste envoys, and whatever native Tau still stationed on Gai'kal being left free from destruction due to simply not being within the system at the time. The remaining population of Hwo'kye went on to become the seeding population for the newfounded Gai'kal Sept. 798.M41 Oresh'uan Sept Recorded by Shas'O Ko'vash ''(As a Shas'ui), a tendril of the fleet was next officially sighted on the Tau world of Oresh'uan. The Sept was hit brutally by the oncoming tide from arching across the 3rd line of longitude from the southern pole. Oresh'uan was a healthy Sept at the time, and as such resisted heavily. It took five years of ceaseless warfare before the fleet retreated. 880.M41 Gai'kal Sept Lost and disorientated in Tau Space after long losing contact with the primary fleet, a small splinter of Erebus found itself once again attracted to the Gai'kal system, driven by an instinctive air of retribution as the stars and orbiting bodies seen and felt by psychic tendrils felt all too familiar. The fleet landed on a now long-isolated Gai'kal Sept, however was taken entirely off guard by a well-prepared and perhaps enforced vanguard of Fire Caste battlesuits, long-bonded warrior kin and a vast array of anti-orbital defence systems. The fleet fought and devoured hard, causing the war to drag out for almost four years before the hive mind of the indeed comparably small splinter fleet demanded a retreat to save what little biomass it had gathered. Losses sustained by the Tau were roughly 32% of its entire population, and the event is long thought to have set the foundations for the first (and failed) Three Castes Revolution of 884.M41. 891.M41 Defence of Phalanx 87 Category:Tyranid Hive Fleets Category:NecrusIV